Day 1, Airport/San Jose

Arrival to Costa Rica. Meet our representative at the Juan Santamaría International Airport and transfer to our hotel near the capital city of San José, where Foto Verde Tours’ Greg Basco will be waiting for you. Our hotel is surrounded by a beautiful tropical garden filled with great subjects for macro photography, including orchids, bromeliads, and passionflowers. There is free wireless Internet throughout the property.

Day 2, Central Pacific Coast

 

After breakfast, we enjoy an introductory presentation on flash from Greg Basco. We depart late morning and then head toward our lodge on the Central Pacific Coast. We arrive for lunch and then set in immediately to photograph macro subjects right on the grounds in order to get some great shots and practice our newly acquired flash skills. After dinner tonight, we will head out into the woods to try to photograph the awesome red-eyed tree frog!

Day 3, Central Pacific Coast

 

After an early breakfast this morning we have an early boat tour on the Tarcoles River where we will photograph egrets, herons, kingfishers, and crocodiles. We return to our lodge for a late breakfast and then take the rest of the morning to download pictures and do a quick image review. After lunch, we again head out in our private boat to photograph magnificent frigatebirds, pelicans, and bare-throated tiger heron in another section of the river.

Day 4, Central Pacific Coast

 

This morning after breakfast, we depart for a destination further down the coast that offers us some great wildlife and coastal landscape opportunities. We arrive to our hotel for lunch and then look for monkeys right on the lodge grounds. Later in the afternoon we head to a nearby beach that is a tropical paradise and will offer us a number of different compositional options for great sunset pictures! We return to our hotel later this evening for a relaxing dinner.

Day 5, South Pacific Coast

 

We enjoy an early breakfast this morning and then enjoy a day trip to the nearby Manuel Antonio National Park, a great place to photograph white-faced capuchin and squirrel monkeys, as well as iguanas, sloths, and crab-eating raccoon. We return to our lodge in late afternoon with time to relax and photograph monkeys at our hotel before heading out again for sunset at our favorite beach.

Day 6, Pacific Cloud Forest

 

After breakfast today we depart and head toward the beautiful misty highlands of the Talamanca Mountain Range. En route we stop for a coffee at a small restaruant that has good bird feeders that attract some colorful tanagers and honeycreepers and sometimes even the fiery-billed aracari. We arrive to our mountain hotel for lunch and then settle in to photograph some beautiful rushing cloud forest river landscapes just down the road.

Day 7, Pacific Cloud Forest

 

Today we have a special treat. We'll be spending all day photographing woodpeckers, tanagers, and hummingbirds at a new project that we helped to design with a friend of Foto Verde Tours. We'll set up special perches and flowers for our avian photo subjects and work the whole day to get some fantastic photos!

Day 8, Pacific Cloud Forest

 

After breakfast today we have some time to look for the fantastic Resplendent Quetzal which sometimes frequents our hotel grounds. In the late morning we check and head to our next destination, a family-run lodge even higher up in the mountains. At this location, Foto Verde Tours has a built a private hummingbird photography area. Right after lunch, we'll get to work there! This evening, we'll enjoy a presentation from Greg on the art and technique of multiple-flash hummingbird photography.

Day 9, Pacific Cloud Forest

 

This morning we head out with the lodge owner to look for the Resplendent Quetzal, the Holy Grail for neotropical bird photographers. The lodge owner and his family have started a project to work with local farmers in the area to monitor and protect the Quetzal, and this network exponentially raises our probability of getting a good photographic look at this beautiful species. After breakfast, we will work the rest of the day at our new private photo area. This is a new area that is a collaborative effort between the family that owns the lodge and Foto Verde Tours. We'll spend the afternoon photographing the amazing Fiery-throated Hummingbird as well as other hummingbird species such as the Green Violet-ear and Magnificent Hummingbird. In addition to getting great pictures, you will learn how to do multiple-flash hummingbird photography using Foto Verde Tours co-founder Greg Basco's renowned technique for capturing natural looking images. 

Day 10, Pacific Cloud Forest and back to San Jose

 

Before breakast this morning we have time for our last chance at the Resplendent Quetzal. After breakfast, we check out and head back toward San Jose, stopping for lunch at a lodge that has great hummingbird feeders that give us a chance to photograph the large Violet Sabrewing. We arrive to our hotel in late afternoon and then enjoy a farewell dinner at the hotel restaurant this evening.

Day 11, to Airport

 

Private transfer to the Juan Santamaría International Airport for your flights home.